


My Angel, My Punching Bag

by Name_Pending



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel Needs a Hug, Guilty Dean, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protective Dean Winchester, Set Early Season 11, Stop Hurting Cas 2k17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 21:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12374895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Name_Pending/pseuds/Name_Pending
Summary: After almost killing Castiel, Dean realises something - Cas has been his emotional punching bag for years, and now it’s turned physical. It’s a wake-up call for Dean, and something has to change.





	My Angel, My Punching Bag

By the time Dean and Sam get back to the bunker after the Mark of Cain is removed, both are exhausted. The bunker is a mess and they plan to ignore it until the morning, but then they find Castiel, and he’s in a bad way.

At first Dean thinks Cas hasn’t moved since Dean beat him to a bloody pulp and left him there on bunker floor. He’s quick to realise that that’s not true, and when Cas tells them about Rowena’s attack dog spell, he almost forgets about what he did to his friend. All that matters now is saving him.

For two days their time is devoted to finding a way to save the angel, and when they eventually manage it, Dean is glad that he’s the one this time with a bloody face. It feels right, like he had this coming. He deserves it for what he did to Castiel.

Cas apologises, and Dean knocks him back. Cas offers to fix the damage, but Dean refuses. He pretends he doesn’t notice the hurt look on the angel’s face when he gets up and walks out the room, leaving his brother and his best friend to stare after him in concern.

Dean sits on the bed, a mixture of pain and guilt riling him up to the point where he can’t even try to sleep. The whiskey in his hand helps only a little; it’s not enough. He’s not sure _anything_ could be enough right now.

Now that Cas is okay, the guilt over what he had done to him mere days ago is back in full force. Without the distraction of trying to save Cas from Rowena, all Dean can think about is what he did to Cas, what he said to him.

And the more he thinks about it, the more he realises that this wasn’t the first time.

He’s been hurting Cas for years now, he just usually doesn’t use his fists. Mostly it’s just words, but he’s as good at inflicting pain with words as he is with a knife. Dean is an artist, using every medium at his disposal to inflict pain, and he’s only now realising that Cas has become his muse.

For years he has been using Castiel as his own personal punching bag. He expects Cas to come running every time he calls him, and gets annoyed when he doesn’t. He takes him for granted and uses him when he needs to, but is quick enough to let him go off on his own when he’s not needed.

He takes out his own frustrations and anger issues on the angel. He puts a lot on Cas, who even the blind could see was devoted to Dean Winchester. He uses him as an emotional punching bag, and he has been doing so for so long that he wonders if he was _ever_ a good friend to the angel. He suspects not.

And now he’s crossed a line he didn’t even know was there. He knows deep down that he would never hurt Cas the way he did without the Mark’s influence, but he still _did_ it. It was still him who came so close to killing his own best friend. His angel, who had stayed by his side and died for him and broken through mind control to save him…

Why hadn’t he been able to do the same?

He’s weak. He knows that, but it’s not an excuse.

He’s been attacking Cas emotionally for years, and now it’s finally turned physical. He’s finally lashed out at the angel with his hands the way he’s been lashing out with his words for years, and it’s an ugly, bitter realisation for the hunter.

Why the hell does Cas stay with them? Is it for Sam? It surely has to be, because Cas has no reason whatsoever to stay for Dean. Not after everything Dean’s done to him.

Yet he’s just down the hall. He came back to the bunker with them…

No, it’s worse than that. He came back to the bunker when he was under Rowena’s spell. He came to them when he was at his weakest, because he had nowhere else to go, and because he trusted that they would help him.

He put that much faith in Dean, after all that he’s done - it’s too much, and Dean doesn’t even realise that he’s punched the wall until he’s blinking at the hole left by his fist.

He looks at the dust crumbling from the hole in the wall, and the plaster momentarily flashes to Castiel’s bruised, bloody face, before Dean blinks the memory away.

It wouldn’t be so bad if that was the worst thing he’d ever done, but he knows better. The pain in his face and now in his own hand, it’s nothing compared to all the emotional pain he’s caused the angel over the years.

A small, dark part of himself that he usually ignores pipes up somewhere in the back of his mind and reminds him that Cas has hurt him, too. He screams inside his own head, tells the voice to shut up, because he _knows_ , dammit!

He remembers all too well. Cas betrayed him once, disappeared on him, attacked him. Cas has lied to him and discarded him, and it’s hurt like hell every time. Every time the angel fucks him over, one way or the other, he tells himself that this will be the last time. _This_ time is the angel’s last chance, only it never works out that way.

Dean always forgives him, and he can’t even figure out _why_.

Except, maybe he can. Maybe the reason is that for all the pain Castiel has caused him over the years, he knows all too well that he has caused the angel just as much pain, perhaps more. After all, Cas has never expected him to give up Sam. But Dean has always pressured Cas to value him and Sam over the angels, the creatures that Dean loathes but that Cas still considers family.

Dean has always been like this, expecting more from Cas than he’s willing to give. He’s been emotionally slicing up the angel’s entire being for so long now, and he’s finally begun to use his hands as well.

Dean growls and crudely bandages up his pulsing fist with a towel.

This was the first time he really, truly hurt Cas physically. It’s also going to be the last.

Still, the wounds from that were easy for the angel to heal. The emotional wounds Dean has inflicted on him for the past few years, though … he’s under no illusions; he knows they will be far more difficult to mend.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t going to try.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure whether this would be better as a one-shot or if I should add another chapter, so let me know what you guys think! ^.^


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